It was Tuesday evening when my husband and I arrived at the hospital. The contractions came and went sporadically. They confirmed my water broke and sent us upstairs to my labor room. We settled ourselves in. We looked at each other with excitement. We knew it would now only be moments until we got to meet our baby. The string of lights was strung, and a scented diffuser was set up beside my bed. We were able to see the mountains in the distance through the windows. Not an ounce of disappointment ever appeared. I was not afraid. I felt ready.
They started me on a medication to help the contractions act more consistently. I was surrounded by the best team I could have imagined. The midwife and nurse that night helped me ride each wave. I moved from the birthing ball to the warm tub back to the bed. And with each moment of weakness, at each fork in the road, my husband was by my side. He was my rock; my voice of reason; my advocate. He never left me for one second.
This is where I tell you the doula I hired never showed up. Not at this moment and not at any moment during my birth. But this is also where I tell you that I learned I didn’t need her. I was afraid I wouldn’t have the best care team, and I was afraid my husband wouldn’t be able to support me the way I would need him to. In another lifetime with another care team and a lesser man of a husband I might have needed a doula. But gratefully in this lifetime with this birth, I didn’t. I believe most things happen for a reason and the reason that doula failed at her job was so that I could see the strong, supportive and capable man that I married. This experience brought us closer together than I could have ever imagined.
Tuesday night was spent breathing through each contraction and trying to get as much sleep as possible, with the least amount of pain medication available. By Wednesday morning we learned I had not progressed despite the hours that had gone by. I found myself at yet another fork in the road. Do I keep at this the way that I have, or do I throw in the towel yet again and request the interventions I’ve been tirelessly trying to avoid? I looked at my exhausted husband and I kept in mind my little baby trying to enter this world. My midwife looked at me and gave it to me straight – words that I would take with me to apply to everything else in life. She reminded me that the priorities are like a pyramid. My desires for an unmedicated birth, in a tub, in my illuminated environment were at the top. But at the bottom, the most important priority is that we have a safe and healthy birth for baby and mom. She reminded me that birth was not the end goal, but only the beginning. The beginning of motherhood and the beginning of more sleepless nights. And it was at that point where I realized we needed to do whatever it took to get our baby earth side. I took Pitocin to increase the contractions and eventually the epidural to ease the intensified pain. I got the rest that I needed, and it was only a handful of hours until I was fully dilated and ready to push our baby out.
Our daughter was born at 8:45 pm on 4/24/24. Perfect. Healthy. Beautiful. And happy. From the first day I found out my due date would be 4/25 I had in the back of my mind how special it would be if she was born on 4/24. I should have watched what I wished for.
Reflecting on my birth journey I don’t have any regrets or anger. Instead, I’m full of gratitude. Grateful for my husband, my care team, my faith and to be living in this day and age where we do have an adequate medical system to fall back on. I started this journey with fear. Fear of facing emotional and physical trauma. That fear led me down the path of education. That education, though, led me to more fear of what could happen if I drifted away from a certain plan. But what I learned on the other side is that nothing is certain. Nothing is black and white. A cesarean section is not the worst outcome in birth. An epidural does not always lead to a C-section. It doesn’t prevent you from pushing in optimal birthing positions. And it does not always lead to physical trauma or more interventions. The same lesson I learned in pregnancy is the same lesson in birth – just because someone else experienced something does not mean you will experience it, too.
Birth stories are personal. Just like motherhood. They’re full of important decisions that need to be made for both mom and for baby. Decisions that are neither right nor wrong. Yet, as outsiders we tend to believe we sit in the chair to judge them as either or. It dawned on me that my desperate attempt to have things go a certain way was me unknowingly judging any other way. I decided from that day on that I would learn to have a more open mind. To show more grace to myself and to other women.
I write my story for my daughter to one day learn how she entered this world. Strong and resilient like both of her parents. Surrounded by love. With friends and family lifting up prayers for her. Born with the help of a team of women who believed in both her and her mother. Who saw them as strong and capable women.
And I share my story to remind others that just because a plan doesn’t go the way you want it to, especially a birth plan, it does not mean it cannot be absolutely perfect. That there isn’t a happy ending to be seen. God doesn’t always give us what we want – and often times it’s what we think we want – He gives us what we need.
